Students get creative to promote municipal vote

Design students at a Montreal university have launched a creative online campaign urging people to vote in the Nov. 1 municipal election.

The website created by students at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) features 54 sobering images playing on key municipal issues and scandals. The site, titled SOS Montréal, is getting thousands of hits every day, its creators say. 

One poster featured on the site spells out the word Montreal with the "t" formed by two Band-Aids. Another shows a joker card with the faces of mayoral candidates Gérald Tremblay and Louise Harel spliced together. A third has an image of current mayor Tremblay with a water spigot as a nose.

The campaign didn't intend to take such a dim view of the state of the city and its elected officials, but that's how students see their hometown, said UQÀM design professor Nelu Wolfensohn.

"Creators and artists have some kind of sixth sense to catch in one image what is really going on," he told CBC News.

Student Maria Azul Bari's poster, which uses Montreal's area code as a clever way to identify the city, spells out "514 CALL 911. City in danger" in large letters.

"The message is we need to change things before the city gets to the point of no return," Bari said last week.

"I adore Montreal, and I really believe and trust in the city. But it's got to the point where I think we need to start getting involved – and it's going to evolve not necessarily in the right way if we don't."

Montreal's municipal campaign has been rocked by allegations of corruption and collusion at city hall.

Benoit Labonté, the former right-hand man of Harel, who heads the Vision Montréal party, was forced to withdraw from the race after allegations he accepted a $100,000 campaign donation from a construction entrepreneur.

Students might not be pleased with the state of Montreal's affairs, but the bottom line is that people should go vote if they want to see change, Wolfensohn said.

"It's clear by abandoning the political life, we are not going to succeed in cleaning out the stable, that's for sure," said the professor, who specializes in poster art.